Any device that functions as Chromecast and Roon ready/Roon endpoint

Situation is: for general listening casting to groups is great, get music anywhere and everywhere. For pleasure listening however Chromecast is garbage.

So I’m looking for a device that functions as a Chromecast receiver with spdif or optical out and as a High Rez Room endpoint again with spdif or optical out.

I already have a DAC to feed into, bud DAC doesn’t have HDMI for the Chromecast and isn’t natively room ready.

Anyone have alternate solutions to this or know of such a device? I’ve read about r-pi ropieeee but doesn’t seem like it can function as a Chromecast receiver…

Sounds like you are using the current Chromecast unit which is HDMI and more for TV.

I have three of the older CCA ( Chromecast Audio) pucks and I would say that the listening experience is exactly the opposite of garbage.
These have mini toslink outputs and are a totally different animal to the later HDMI Chromecast units.

Only available used on eBay etc though.

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It’s a ccaudio puck hifi mode into optical, but it’s no match for computer to Bryston BUC 1 to coax. CC sounds flat, soft, dead soundstage. CC is doing something not sure if it’s data compression or resolution limitations.

In Google Home under each units individual settings:audio do you have full dynamic range checked?

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Yep I’ve been running them for years in hifi mode, but now they’re no longer made only the new HDMI ones are easy to find.

What do you cast to the CCA? It’s known that casting from Chrome browser gives a poor result.

Edit: I guess you must be casting from Roon. What is the music source?

Yes casting from Roon. It seems widely known that Chromecast just doesn’t sound as good as other streamer hardware, for what ever reason the difference is vast.

There should also be no difference between the new Ccast with Google tv and previous Chromecast, yet there is a very noticeable difference and these are via HDMI.

Ccast doesn’t seem to display any rate data so there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to check if it’s apples to apples data, but it sure sounds like apples to applesauce.

The Primare NP5 mkI or II should meet your needs.

How many times do I have to post this? Third time is the charm?

AJ

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Widely known? Where? By whom? According to the measurements on Audio Science Review, the CCA works pretty well as a streamer. As an integrated streamer/DAC/pre-amp, less well, but hardly terrible.

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I don’t actually use the mini toslink output on any of mine, using 3.5mm to twin RCA cable direct into analog inputs of various integrated amps.
So still relevant to my application but possibly not to the op IF every one of his six units are utilizing the mini toslink output.
But good information all the same :sunglasses:

This is what I’m looking for and today is the last day of a complementary 2yr Roon sub! Just in time.

Thank you!

Chromecast stack is known to be pretty resource hungry and can take up limited resources in some hifi gear. Fine if its just a Chromecast device designed purely for that purpose but not so on other hifi systems that use limited shared resources to manage all the things they support. It definitely doesn’t sound as good as Airplay , UPnP or Roon on my Naim system This is down to the Chromecast stack using pretty much all of the memory resources available according to their lead software engineer. I don’t think the higher end consider these protocols as being the gold standard and are added purely as convenience for the consumer and for marketing to tick boxes.

That’s interesting. But of course with the CCA, as you say, that’s not an issue. And that still wouldn’t affect the sound, would it?

The thing about “other hifi systems that use limited shared resources to manage all the things they support” is that they are supposed to manage those resources. If they don’t do that properly, sure, you’ll have problems. But that’s on the designers of those systems, and the OS they use, not on individual apps.

It’s not exactly a protocol, is it? Rather, it’s a way to implement your own protocol, as Roon does with their Chromecast support (see Danny’s various posts on the subject). Something like the Roon Bridge, only programmable. I suppose if you do it poorly, you will get poor results. Or if you implement a bad protocol, you’ll get poor results.

All I know is that compared to RAAT on same device, RAAT is a winner in all ways.

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Actually, I’m not sure about the protocol. I had the impression that Roon wasn’t using the Google Cast protocol to send the data, that they basically downloaded a version of Roon Bridge into the Chromecast device and talked to that using their own protocol, maybe even RAAT. But looking at the Cast SDK, I don’t see how they would do that.

I believe Roon is using the Google Cast protocol for streaming, which is why only Chromecast devices can be grouped and not shared with other Roon devices. This is similar to Roon’s AirPlay (ver. 1) grouping also, in that only AirPlay devices can be grouped.

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There are some very technical, well-informed answers here, but I am wondering whether you have considered the simple solution of an HDMI splitter. I am using some generic brand HDMI splitter for audio from Chromecast. The splitter takes HDMI input and delivers HDMI video output and SPDIF audio output, which I feed to my high end DAC. It is a cheap solution that sounds quite listenable for video streams, though well short of what I expect from my streamer and DAC for Roon audio.

No it’s uses Google cast how else would it work. You can’t install your own protocol on a Chromecast, where on earth did you get that idea?

From something Danny wrote a couple of years ago:

This comment, plus the responses by @Edward12 point to a misunderstanding of how Chromecast works. There is no Chromecast audio protocol. There is no Chromecast video protocol. The Chromecast protocol is more like a programmable web browser, where Roon (and other apps) can tell it to load up custom code to do some logic in the browser. A media protocol on both ends is dictated by Roon (and other apps).

It’s open to interpretation. I guess Google Cast could still be the thing moving the bits between devices.